Forum:DB:Petition: Nukapedia against or for a mandatory Message Wall feature

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Some Assembly Required!As many of Wikia's more prominent members already know, Wikia has been known to push out new features that are more tailored to social aspects rather than editing aspects, even without community consensus. This has caused quite a few problems, with many users and wikis leaving when these features are made mandatory across every wiki. For all of you that don't yet know, the recent skin change which removed Monaco is one of the major reasons why The Vault split away from Wikia, which is why we are now known as Nukapedia. Recently, Wikia has been playing around with a feature that will remove our talk-pages and add what they have named as the "Message wall...". If you want further details, I will provide you with a few of the links where discussions and updates are listed involving the Message Wall:

As you can see from those links, message walls are still in the experimental stages, and so they are still optional, at the moment, being accessed through the Wikia Labs. However, Wikia Staff have clearly stated their intentions to make this feature mandatory across every wiki on Wikia once its functions have been properly de-bugged and tested across random wikis. This petition is to gain community consensus here at Nukapedia, and will be stored for when Wikia updates us on how they want to continue with the message wall feature. Whether our community is positive or negative towards this concept, this petition will be directly sent to each Staff member, as well as being put up as a public announcement over Community Central once the time is right to do so.

Petition Guidelines:

Derogatory comments aimed at Wikia will not be tolerated. This petition will be considered as neutral grounds, so try and keep your votes and opinions as objectionable and ad-hominem-free as possible. Failure to comply will result in your votes and comments being struck out.

You must provide a reason for your vote. This petition is a very serious matter, and could determine whether or not Nukapedia is changed for better or worse.

Debating others' opinions and votes is allowed here, to an extent. Going as far as insulting or removing another person's vote will result in yours being rendered null, and possible ramifications against your person.

Please vote no if you are against this feature being mandatory across all wikis. Voting no doesn't necessarily mean you are against the actual feature itself. Just over it being mandatory.

Mandatory features restricts us, as per ToU we would be unable to remove, or obscure, such features when implemented. For the actual message wall itself, I see no reason why the current system, the talk pages, is not suitable for purpose nor how the message wall has improved upon the system (to clarify: "feeds" is not a problem solution improvement, merely aesthetic choice). The systematic, social network changes is a self-explanatory matter. Gothic NekoNeko's Haunt 01:22, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

I would say no to this as well. On the Wolfenstein wiki we tried it and it turned out talk pages into what looked like text message windows. And when someone left a message, it didn't always send an email to alert the page owner that someone made a change. If that has been fixed, I'm not sure. To me it just seems to text messagey. Currently it is off on both the Wolfenstein Wiki and the Vietnam Wiki. For fun sake I have enabled it the Vietnam War Wiki. http://vietnamwar.wikia.com/wiki/Message_Wall:Kingclyde Again, I'm not a fan, but leave me messages and interact with it see what you think.--Kingclyde (talk) 10:49, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

It can cause some glitches, as some buttons may not show up (similar to Vote button on the Polls). Besides, what is wrong with user talk pages? They are simple and adding Message Wall would complicate. EnergyX∞ 11:13, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

The Message Wall looks worse than the talk pages and it's a royal pain trying to find old conversations on them. Message 17:22, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

Initially it may seem interesting, but our system is what I feel works best to suit our needs. This extra feature would be clunky and superfluous. After so long with our system, it's what we know and works. - 19:03, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

I hate when a new feature (on any website) is imposed, forced on the community. I don't like the Message Wall that much that I feel we should have it on here. This community makes do with the Talk Page quite well and we have it all documented in the form of talk pages anyway. It's Nukapedia's way. --C'n-Frankie-ArroyoTalk 21:42, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

I see no current problem with the current talk pages at all. If anything, these "message walls" will simply bring us one step closer to a complete social networking site. What we have right now is just fine and more professional, IMO. --Skire (talk) 21:46, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

I Can see the value in having it the same on every wiki, and have no issues with the feature itself - I prefer it even. However the whole forcing features concerns me, especially given the results similar feature changes has had in the past. Agent c (talk) 10:25, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

I'm happy with the talkpages as we have them now and don't really see a need to change what is working well. Haven't really looked at the Message Wall system but after getting the bugs out, we would get used to it eventually. I hope they don't force it upon us though. Jspoel 17:01, September 18, 2012 (UTC)

I see two immediate issues, one already suggested, that being the feature forced on us. The second issue is that some of my very first edits here were on talk pages. Those edits helped me learn how to edit and format enough to actually do stuff on the articles without making such a huge mess. As for the utility of the message wall itself, I haven't used it enough to be certain. Can we continue our practice of responding on each others' message walls? Would the message wall notification obviate the need for that? These things I'm not so sure about, and I'll need to mess with it to get warm and fuzzy. Or not. The Gunny 22:46, September 23, 2012 (UTC)